"Pesticides intended for agricultural uses are being sold by adult and youth informal vendors for domestic use which is resulting in child poisonings. These street pesticides are predominately registered for agricultural uses (not domestic uses), decanted into common drink containers, unlabelled and used for domestic pest control. Researching informal vendors of street pesticides is complicated and asks the question of how does one research what appears to be the unresearchable. That is, how does one research a heterogeneous population group that is not static, highly mobile, changes characteristics regularly, involved in a high risk and illegal trade, and who tend to be weary of the constant threat of arrest and others taking over their selling territory. In this paper it is argued that unregulated use of street pesticides is a silent global occupational and environmental health problem that is resulting in acute poisoning of youth as well as creating a high risk for long-term chronic health effects. Findings and a conceptual model to support this hypothesis are presented from an exploratory study on the sale and use of street pesticides in peri-urban areas of Cape Town, South Africa illustrating that the youth have occupational and home exposures to street pesticides."

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